The Department of Pharmaceuticals (DoP) in collaboration with the National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA) will soon roll out an SMS-based helpline to help the consumers to choose the cheapest available drug.

The NPPA has launched the exercise for this ambitious programme, which has been mooted for long to make available the affordable drugs to the consumers and thereby indirectly influencing the market prices through transparent competition.

The NPPA has called for expression of interests from the interested agencies to set up and run the helpline. The consumer can send the brand name of a prescribed drug in text message and will get a list of brands of the same medicine along with their prices for choosing the cheapest brand.

The move is initiated after the NPPA had found that there were huge differences in the prices of different brands of the same medicines. In some cases, expensive brands are ten times higher than the cheapest available alternative brand of the same medicine. And the consumers do not have options, as they are not aware of the brands other than what is prescribed by the doctors. This SMS service is aimed at helping out the consumer on this count, sources said.

“In order to enable the consumers to know the latest market price of the medicines through SMS, NPPA intends to start all India SMS helpline service for consumers. Expression of Interest (EoI) is invited from eligible companies/firms/agencies having sufficient experience, infrastructure and access to MRP of all the medicines available and sold in various parts of India,” according to the notification by the NPPA.

“To provide instant information through SMS (in 160 characters) reply on the latest market price of various generic and branded medicines of the same salt available in the area of the queerest on receipt of SMS query from the consumers. If the query is for the price of a specific brand the SMS reply be for the latest MRP of the said brand in that area. In case the query is for the cheapest medicines without specifying any name subject to space availability the service provider will provide at least five cheapest prices of generic medicines and five cheapest prices of branded medicines,” according to the scope of work specified in the notice.

The company/firm/agency should have three years experience of providing this type of services. The company/firm/agency should have access to latest market price of all the generic and branded medicines available and sold in various parts of the country including in the remote areas. The company/firm/agency should have the ability to track and update the new generic and branded medicines prices at least on quarterly basis to give the most relevant SMS reply considering the latest updated MRP prevailing in the area of the queerest, it said.